Poll Technica: What can RIM and Blackberry do to win back your heart?

On the eve of a new OS, tell us what would convince you Blackberry isn't doomed.

Research in Motion may only see its Blackberry platform as being down for the count, but we’re all but ready to pull the sheet over its head. The company has been trounced month after month in smartphone sales by Apple’s iOS and Google Android. Now, even Windows Phone is catching up.

Worse, it feels like RIM has done precious little to catch itself up to competitors it dismissed only six years ago. The company buried its head in the ground 15 months ago and went to work on the next version of its operating system, Blackberry 10, as its market share continued to slide to zero. Now the company is struggling to hold on to its former business customers and win the attention of developers as it finally prepares to make a splash with BB10.

We’ve seen a bit of the operating system now, and some tidbits about new phones are starting to leak. On the eve of the operating system’s official launch, likely with two new touchscreen handsets, we’re wondering: if RIM were on the metaphorical chopping block and you held the sword, what could it say at its BB10 press event to change your mind about its fate? What could it do to return to the near-unshakeable consumer and business faith it had in 2006?

Regardless of anyone's perceptions and expectations, RIM is set to deliver BB10 in New York City Wednesday morning at 10am EST. Ars will be on the ground, ready to liveblog RIM’s every turn of phrase.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

Focus on killer hardware, not on your past laurels. Stop listening to the people who demand physical keyboards on your products, while they're a portion of your dwindling sales, they are not a realistic future demographic to focus on. The widespread users of cellphones do not care about this or require them. Not enough to ensure future sales, at least.

I'm not a BB user, but my smartphone needs are simple: the phone stuff, the PDA stuff and the Internet stuff.

I spend 90% of my phone-time using my Lumia's included apps and a couple of games I've downloaded. Probably about three quarters of the remaining 10% I use apps which replace functionality my old S60 handsets had built-in (e.g. voice recording, basic photo editing) and the rest of the time there might be some specific function like the Kindle app, or an internet banking app.

IF the BB10 is full-featured like S60 of old, AND it's fluid and intuitive, THEN it might be worth a look for me.

I remember using Good for the Palm Treo 650 and being in awe at its MS Exchange integration. It truly was awesome. Then my Treo broke, and I moved to the first of several Blackberries. I had thought the Treo+Good combo was awesome, but the Blackberry was pure unadulterated awesomeness.

The only drag was BES. It was expensive! In a hosted environment, it cost $20 to setup and $10/month to run. That's per user on the server. Sprint (our carrier) started charging $16 (then lowered it to $10) for the privilege of receiving BES on our Blackberry. So that's $26-$20/month per user, plus all other routine cell plan charges like minutes.

The last I checked, BES still cost about the same. Why in God's green earth would someone pay this? I've been on Android for a couple years now, and Touchdown gives me most everything BES did, but without the monthly server+carrier charge.

They need to have learned from the Playbook: an app store not filled with crap and a matured OS.

If I were RIM I'd focus on the business market, since that's the only market where they still have some mind share. And where they can differentiate their device. The mind share for consumers is long gone, just like Nokia.

Keep the e-mail integration as good as it is, allow me to sync my calendars like Windows Phone does (Outlook, Google, Windows Live, and Facebook seamlessly in one calendar), and have a mobile browser that doesn't choke as frequently as it did on BlackBerry 7.

There's nothing they can do to convince me that the company isn't doomed. They've talked and talked and talked. They've been full of hot air and no performance for a LONG time now. They would have to introduce something far beyond what I can currently envision, not just another "me too" platform that competes on features. They're so far behind that I can't imagine RIM being relevant again. I suppose if they rebuild massive market share, I'd be forced to take another look, but outside of that, why would anyone even consider leaving iOS, Android or Windows Phone, platforms with much stronger support?

I'm with papadage. The company I work for is already underway with replacing all its BB's, since the latest announcements/previews/rumors, if executed flawlessly, wouldn't support our needs as well as other phones (WP8, in our case).

RIM tore the cover off the ball back in the day, providing high-quality messaging where there was none. Then, they added voice! Security! PDA functions!

But then they sneered at the idea that businesspeople might want a flexible computer able to have ALL SORTS of interactive or connected or downloaded apps. Six years ago, Jobs said iPhone was 5 years ahead; Apple & Google & Microsoft haven't exactly been twiddling their thumbs since then.

Nor have indie developers, who have built out all those functions that businesspeople need (and ordinary consumers love), been sitting by idly. We'll see how impressive their Android app VM is, but in my mind, the whole shenanigans Palm played with iTunes was actually the death knell for them: it proved how foolish it is to count on a competitor's resources when you're trying to show staying power, depth and breadth. Businesspeople will be even LESS impressed, unless perhaps Eric Schmidt shows up on stage to promise his eternal blessing.

RIM has a thriving business in parts of the developing world that'd surprise many. Indonesians are HEAVY users of BBM. But that mostly depended on a combo of inexpensive devices plus inexpensive SMS-equivalence; other OTT services are taking over and the BB 10 is way over the right price for that clientele.

I'm sure RIM has asked its best customers what they REALLY need, and they've responded with something like “a compellingly high quality messaging+apps+synchro service” that runs on phones plus tablets. And perhaps RIM will hang on with a core clientele long enough to develop unique services, maybe even apps and conceivably whole new usage paradigms that'll take off.

Low non-contract pricing and 100% wonderful account integration with Google and their services.

I realize that my request seems more like a "why don't you just buy an F'ing android phone instead", but RIM knows how to put together better the hardware (especially battery life) and a their new UI looks very slick.

Give me a cheap phone that takes my Google account and "just works", my money will be in their hands.

Writing off RIM today is (roughly) akin to writing off Apple twelve years ago. The iPhone might be an enormously strong competitor, but it's no longer a nimble one; that giant library of software can really weigh you down, while your competitors work toward building something better.

We've already witnessed the gradual slowdown of innovation in iOS; this is prime time for competitors to surge ahead. And as consumers, we should all be thrilled by this, as it means better technology for everyone.

I don't see them having a chance. Microsoft can pay to stay in the game. Even though they are on top both Apple and Google could also pay to to stay in the game. With RIM either they either Win or Die. Worse they are only still strong in the enterprise market, which has priorities almost orthogonal to what I would want.

BB10 seems to be very gesture-based. All the previews I've seen tout its touch UI.

Given the only thing driving BB adoption here is an executive aversion to touch-based phones, and a love of physical keyboards, I'm not so sure how the X10 will fare, with its hybrid "touch-and-keypad" interface.

Low non-contract pricing and 100% wonderful account integration with Google and their services.

I realize that my request seems more like a "why don't you just buy an F'ing android phone instead", but RIM knows how to put together better the hardware (especially battery life) and a their new UI looks very slick.

Give me a cheap phone that takes my Google account and "just works", my money will be in their hands.

I see that battery life has been mentioned a few times.

But remember that it's easy to have excellent battery life if:

There's no multitasking

The CPU and GPU are weak

There is little memory

There aren't any apps that use a lot of resources

The scenes are smaller than average with poorer resolution

Once you take all of that away with competitive hardware and software, any battery life advantages goes with it, and it becomes difficult to build a phone with better battery life than average. There are only a small number of high end smartphones with really good battery life.

I hope BB10 doesn't force users to rely on RIM's infrastructure for doing anything worthwhile on the Internet. Previously with any Blackberry, you had to have either BES on your company Exchange server or BIS on your carrier, and your data was routed through RIM's network for security. Until the whole network went down...

Other smartphones let you choose what services to use and can work over any data carrier. For example, on Android, I can put in a data-enabled SIM while roaming and use the Internet like I was on my home network, or I could avoid cellular networks altogether and just use Wi-fi. Blackberries are more like terminals for RIM's private network.

All I really need in a smartphone is gmail and gtalk access, google maps (or something equally as good), a decent browser and music player, microSD support and wifi proxy support. My old HTC Legend serves me well enough except for the wifi proxy support, I've had to root it for 3rd party proxy support which works with most things except gtalk. I've been considering something like the Nokia 820, but if BB can make something that suits my needs at a respectable price I'd consider it.

Edit: Oh, and it needs to be well supported. Bug/security fixes need to be rolled out, and added features now and then would be nice.

I don't see them having a chance. Microsoft can pay to stay in the game. Even though they are on top both Apple and Google could also pay to to stay in the game. With RIM either they either Win or Die. Worse they are only still strong in the enterprise market, which has priorities almost orthogonal to what I would want.

Hopefully RIM won't be so pigheaded as to ignore the consumer market and focus on the enterprise, which dumped Blackberries ages ago anyway. The Playbook tablet could have been a big seller if it had catered for consumers from the beginning but it was designed and marketed as an extension to Blackberry phones, instead of being a standalone tablet. Palm tried to do the same with its Folio and that failed too.

They'd have to do something extra-special. It has to be some killer hardware feature, that I can't even think of right now, or maybe a killer data plan (how could they negotiate that with the carriers?).

Focus on killer hardware, not on your past laurels. Stop listening to the people who demand physical keyboards on your products, while they're a portion of your dwindling sales, they are not a realistic future demographic to focus on. The widespread users of cellphones do not care about this or require them. Not enough to ensure future sales, at least.

Thanks to the widespread users of cellphones, the majority of new cellphones are now the size of chocolate slabs. Someone has to cater for the niche markets, otherwise that demographic goes away entirely. My girlfriend hates touch screens, she'd much rather have a physical keypad. If there's no such product available, guess what, she won't buy a smartphone at all.

The last thing RIM should do is try to emulate what iOS and Android are already doing. The portion of users that would be willing to changre from either, would more likely change to the other instead of BlackBerry.

I voted 'Nothing', though it's more prediction than policy. They'd have to make a game changer, not just another 'Me Too' device. Unless they've got some super secret skunkworks, I just don't see them coming up with the next starTAC or iPhone.

Low non-contract pricing and 100% wonderful account integration with Google and their services.

I realize that my request seems more like a "why don't you just buy an F'ing android phone instead", but RIM knows how to put together better the hardware (especially battery life) and a their new UI looks very slick.

Give me a cheap phone that takes my Google account and "just works", my money will be in their hands.

I see that battery life has been mentioned a few times.

But remember that it's easy to have excellent battery life if:

There's no multitasking

The CPU and GPU are weak

There is little memory

There aren't any apps that use a lot of resources

The scenes are smaller than average with poorer resolution

Once you take all of that away with competitive hardware and software, any battery life advantages goes with it, and it becomes difficult to build a phone with better battery life than average. There are only a small number of high end smartphones with really good battery life.

Well, there's also the option, as someone else said, of not obsessing about a couple millimeters less of thickness and put in a larger battery. Sure, the power consumption will be the same as other devices, but end users will just notice they can go for a lot more hours with their Blackberries.

The last I checked, BES still cost about the same. Why in God's green earth would someone pay this? I've been on Android for a couple years now, and Touchdown gives me most everything BES did, but without the monthly server+carrier charge.

There has been a 'light' or Express version of BES for quite some time now. It is free to use, has got the core functionality of BES and unlimited users. It won't support clustering/failover and a lot of the more advanced policies, but other than that, it works fine.

Focus on killer hardware, not on your past laurels. Stop listening to the people who demand physical keyboards on your products, while they're a portion of your dwindling sales, they are not a realistic future demographic to focus on. The widespread users of cellphones do not care about this or require them. Not enough to ensure future sales, at least.

Why not? How about offer both hardware types to fulfill all users? Not all business user and power users want touchy touch bs all the time like the general public but proper hybrids combinations of both smaller touch based screen with a full or half qwerty keyboards. This mentality is only going to bring a failure 2.0 once again to RIM. Mind you that I have not and perhaps will not use a BB, but I certainly want them to succeed. Only thing is that I'm quite sick of BES required bs and apps tied to BES ecosystem. If they can meet or exceed Symbian's classic fundamental OS, I'm sold.

I'm not a BB user, but my smartphone needs are simple: the phone stuff, the PDA stuff and the Internet stuff.

I spend 90% of my phone-time using my Lumia's included apps and a couple of games I've downloaded. Probably about three quarters of the remaining 10% I use apps which replace functionality my old S60 handsets had built-in (e.g. voice recording, basic photo editing) and the rest of the time there might be some specific function like the Kindle app, or an internet banking app.

IF the BB10 is full-featured like S60 of old, AND it's fluid and intuitive, THEN it might be worth a look for me.

This. I never owned BB but when I use them (extensively), I highly dislike their BES dependent system and apps. Where something would fail because of lack of data access that is simply renamed to BES or something. Buggy apps, ads everywhere and battery pulling most of the time. Symbian ftw.

They don't have to win me back, I've been a satisfied user for a few years. I started with the Tour 9630, then upgraded to the Bold 9900 after that was released. Yes, RIM have been laggards. Yes, they fumbled the Playbook repeatedly - and badly. Yes, the hardware. Yes, the apps (though that's in part on the developers/vendors too, not just RIM).

Now, on the flip side, the culture change since new management took over has been noticeable. Thorstein Heins has been pretty open from what I can tell, detailing what was wrong and what needed to be done. In recent months the information released per BB10 has been encouraging. The developers group, under Alec Saunders, has been making strides in engagement, tooling, and support for app developers. The recent port-a-thons, the Built for Blackberry program, the 10K initiative. The company looks quite different from how it did a year ago.

As for me, I'll be watching the unveiling tomorrow with great interest. I don't know whether I will be upgrading right away - that's subject mostly to pricing. I'm halfway into my current 3-year contract - the norm in Canada - so I'm not near an upgrade point. I did end my then-current contract early so I could get an upgrade to the 9900 in Summer 2011 - but the cost may be prohibitive for now. I'll be watching the news all the same!